X-Files Episode Guide: Paper Hearts

Written by Vince Gilligan

Directed by Rob Bowman

There has been an added sense throughout much of the third season that the mythology that the series has been developing was nothing but a smokescreen for something much more real and far more insidious. This episode takes that same perspective and  adds it to the starting point for all of this---- the abduction of Samantha Mulder. In doing so, Vince Gilligan creates one of the most frightening and touching episodes the series would ever do.

Walking back to his profiling days at Quantico, the episode goes against the tradition of so many of the teasers by having Mulder in it, and the horrible event having taken place twenty years in the past. Mulder is reminded of one of his earlier cases--- an investigation into the abduction and murder of thirteen young girls. In last season's Grotesque, we saw what the consequences of getting inside the killer's head did to the profiler. Now, we see what is a mirror image of this, as the killers forms a way to get inside Mulder's head. It's also fairly chilling that the killer in this case is yet another in Gilligan's set of very human monsters--- he's almost dull and without charm, more interested in his vacuum cleaner sales than he is about the young girls he murdered.

John Lee Roche is one of the more unsettling killers in the series pantheon. Of course, when the actor portraying you is Tom Noonan, one of most unsettling and frightening character actors to ever appear on screen, you can't help but be creeped out by what you see. What makes it all the more unsettling the familiarity between the two when we first see him in prison --- it's clear that Mulder and Roche regard each other as old acquaintances. We don't know why we're so unsettled by him, until the series points out the connection. It's done in a genius way, too, replaying the dream sequence that we saw in Little Green Men but with a much more horrifying and realistic ending. And the effect is actually overwhelming, because there is something very frightening and yet alluring by the idea that Samantha was killed this way, because this would bring peace and resolution. There's something very unsettling about the idea that by the halfway point, we almost want it to be the truth, even though the ending would be far more horrific than anybody deserves.

In a critical moment about halfway through the episode, Mulder asks Scully point blank whether she ever believed that his sister was abducted by aliens---- and she  can only answer with silence. Scully finds herself playing skeptic, but this time it goes against her nature---- we know she probably believes something like this happen, but she just can not give into the idea of Roche's manipulations.

David Duchovny gives one of the greatest performances he will ever give as Mulder tormented to his absolute limits of his psyche. Throughout Season 4, we've seen how Mulder's single-mindedness has made him seem selfish and reckless at times. This is the first episode that demonstrates just how destructive it is, only this time, it's more appalling because the main victim for most of the episode is himself. The beating of Roche is only the start of Mulder's terrible behavior, and we see how far down the road he's willing to go when he signs a serial killer out of prison, loses his gun and badge, and ends up setting Roche free in order to kidnap and kill one more innocent child.

Considering how badly Mulder comes off, it's astonishing how many great moments there are in this episode.  His increasing desperation when he finds Roche's cloth hearts, counts them, and learns that there were three more victims than he thought he had. The franticness with which he digs up the dirt when he sees the words 'MAD HAT' at the burial site of one of those bodies. The utter despair as he approaches that same body in the morgue, followed by elation and then despair again when he realizes that the victim is not Samantha. His righteous anger when, after Roche goes into great detail about the killing, he tells him that he's in the wrong house. The desperation when he sees Samantha in Roche's car, his joy when he frees her--- only to learn it's just another fantasy. The utter shame on his face as he tells the woman in charge of a day care that she's not responsible for letting a child be handed to her. The fear when he finds himself faced with another impossible choice in the final scene with Roche, when he makes the right choice---- but that choice is to shoot Roche in the head. No wonder Mulder looks so utterly worn down in the final scene when Scully tells him that they may never known where the last heart comes from--- he has been put through the ultimate ringer.

This is also one of the most standout episodes technically, which is surprised considering how utterly low-key most of the special effects are, especially compared with the last two-parter. Here, using nothing more than laser-dot pointer, and shadowy images the cinematography creates some of the true masterpiece. And Mark Snow's music is amount the most haunt and perfect he would ever create for the series (and deservedly received an Emmy nomination for it.

Considering how utterly and totally off-center the mythology is starting to become--- the last episodes are the prime example---- it only goes to show what a mistake the writers made when they abandoned the more realistic grit of it last season. Just as Nisei/731 demonstrated something far more satisfying than what we actually got for the mytharc, Paper Hearts demonstrates just how well it would've been handled had Samantha's abduction been cut of the same cloth (pun definitely not intended). Had this been the real resolution of the Samantha arc, it would've been considered a far more satisfying result then the 'resolution' we would ultimately get. As it is, this is one of the high points of the series, demonstrating as the X-Files could, every now and again, just how terrifying the utterly banal could be.

My score: 5 stars.